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Logger Select

Started by Gary_C, March 31, 2013, 10:15:46 PM

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Gary_C

This past week I took my annual training day at a classroom and field day near Aitken, MN on using operator select harvests. Here is the write up on the training day.

Logger Select - DNR (8 hrs. MLEP Cr.)

This full-day, classroom and field workshop will present key principles of selecting timber for harvest based on a silviculture prescription and desired stand outcome.  The workshop will provide an atmosphere where loggers and foresters can constructively discuss the perspectives and tradeoffs inherent in selecting trees for harvest.   Additionally, loggers will gain a better understanding of silvicultural systems & prescriptions and their associated rationale.  Natural resource managers will also learn more about factors that limit a logger's ability to be successful when implementing silvicultural prescriptions.  Finally, the training will provide an overview of anticipated operator select opportunities to be available from the MN Department of Natural Resources.At the end of the workshop, participants will:
1.Be familiar with common terminology and concepts related to operator select
2.Have discussed the tradeoffs inherent in selecting trees for harvest
3.Understand the benefits associated with operator select harvests
4.Be comfortable using an angle gauge &/or prism to calculate dbh and basal area
5.Have selected trees for harvest based on given landowner objectives and two different silvicultural systems
6.Feel more confident communicating with landowners, foresters, and other loggers about operator select

I was somewhat more interested in the operator select on conifers but most of the discussion was on hardwoods.

Logger or operator select has some obvious cost savings for the DNR but there is strong resistance from many foresters to release the selection decisions to someone else. So in the near future, most of this work will be done on low quality sites. Except for conifers where most DNR sales are now operator select with a basal area target.

The particular site visited was a marked thinning gone wrong where the original objectives were not being met. So in the middle of the job, the contract was changed from a sold as appraised to a scaled sale with added timber. This picture shows the site.



 

Here is a short video that was posted:

Logger Select

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

Ron Scott

Are all the Logger Select sales scaled sales where the logger pays for the product volume from the selected trees when cut?
~Ron

Gary_C

Ron I have only done operator select sales on conifers and yes, the ones I have done were scaled sales. And one sale was for a private landowner and the rest have been MN DNR. And the one that I am just finishing is a blowdown sale that is sort of a operator select to remove the bent, broken and uprooted red pines that has been for the most part a clearcut as the modified prescription was if there is over 75 % damage to clearcut for replanting reasons.

But I do have one upcoming first thinning of white pine that was set up as a sold as appraised. I'm not real sure why the forester set it up as a SOAV sale but I can be somewhat confident that I will get 311 cords from the 36 acres on an operator select and lately the DNR has not been very good at estimating volumes. Perhaps the reason for SOAV was the forester that set the sale up retired right after he set the sale up.

One of the obvious concerns with operator select is high grading on hardwood stands or top down thinning on conifer stands. But there may be good reasons for that in hardwoods in uneven aged stands where there are some mature trees that will not last till the next cut and there is some recent evidence in red pine that top down thinning is a good thing.

One thing I pointed out is that marking trees does not need to be limited to marked sales. There are good reasons to mark a limited number of trees even on an operator select sale such as removing over mature trees or for example in some white pine sales to mark the blister rust trees. It is not always easy to spot blister rust infections from just one side of white pine and one side is all you can see from the seat of a harvester.
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

Tmac47

Quote from: Gary_C on March 31, 2013, 11:41:33 PM

One thing I pointed out is that marking trees does not need to be limited to marked sales. There are good reasons to mark a limited number of trees even on an operator select sale such as removing over mature trees or for example in some white pine sales to mark the blister rust trees. It is not always easy to spot blister rust infections from just one side of white pine and one side is all you can see from the seat of a harvester.

Just to play a bit of the devil's advocate, would that be an issue though if there's a consulting forester?  If anyone's been walking through the woods at all, I feel like they'd notice some tale-tale diseases.

The biggest problem I see with operator select would be in the scenario where you have a really strict management plan.  It can be easy to get into the swing of things and not pay attention to how many trees you're leaving per acre.  Especially if the management plan calls for a very specific number.

Measure this against the savings you'll see with operator select and you can do a cost/benefit analysis.

If it were me, it would depend on the reputation of the guys doing operator select...

barbender

I can see where combining operator select with sold as appraised is a recipe for disaster. Every tree the operator cuts over the appraised volume is basically free stumpage.
Too many irons in the fire

nk14zp

I do feel the cutter should be able to check his basal area by him/her self.
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